PBS Show "World World" helped teach my 4 year old to read

Those of you with preschool children should check out the new PBS tv show called Word World.  Its very clever - all the animated animals, buildings, and items in the show are drawn out of of the letters that make up their word.

Its got cute plots and jazzy music, but the real genius of this show is how every episode hinges around the characters having to "build a word."  My kids go to a fantastic preschool and Ms. Octavia, Ben's teacher, deserves alot of the credit for his reading skills, but I swear that Word World is what brought it all together for him.  And Adam is trying valiantly to keep up.  Even though he is 17 months younger than Ben he doesn't seem to think that should hinder him from building words too.

So pooh on all those snooty people who say TV has no redeeming value for kids.  I do let me kids watch quality kids programming and I think there is alot of great stuff out there for kids these days.

Speaking of unconventional ways for kids to learn, I came across an interesting homeschooling and unschooling blog called Lifelong Learning.  I am probably the worlds least biggest fan of home schooling, however some of the ideas that the homeschoolers use are great.  I especially like some of the unschooling ideas because they focus on learning as a lifelong activity - which is perfect for weekend and evening projects for those of us with kids in school.  Plus unschooling can seem just plain old subversive and that piques my interest.  Have you noticed that I have been kind of subversive this week?  Hmm...  must be something in the air.

Word World, photo from web - credit PBS